Hunger strikers demand better conditions

See more hunger striker stories at www.solitarytorture.Blogspot.com
Ladell Evans announces hunger strike briefly stating he is "Fed Up"

https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/ladell-evans-joshua-berrios-hunger-strike-8-27-16.pdf

Here is his background story

https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/ladell-evans-seg-description-1.pdf

https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/ladell-a-evans-533468-wci-11-29-15.docx

Kyle Young GBCO

9/1/16

I am writing you on behalf of the hunger strike I have begun on with other inmates within Greenbay Max. I’d like to thank you for your support in putting our names out there so others could reach out to us also. Since 7-13-16 I have been on hunger strike and it has been a struggle. Recently I was threatened to be sprayed with OC gas because I refused to come out of my cell to be seen by the nurse because I am on hunger strike, and they wanted to do a wellness check.
      They say we have no right to refuse medical attention because it’s their policy, but 8-9-16 I refused to come out of my cell to see the doctor & nurse and was told “That’s your choice it’s not my health”. I feel these people here just want to punish us for standing up against the unjust and corrupt. It’s hard to feel safe in this environment when I still have some time left to do in prison. I have been in segregation since 4-12-16 and I don’t get out until 11-18-16 if they don’t decide to put me on *A/C, and I am isolated from a lot of resources. I am reaching out to you for any kind of legal help or any good civil law firms. I am also indigent and am writing you with a free stamp indigent inmates get every two weeks and would like to know if I could get help with getting stamped envelopes if possible, it would help me stay in contact with you more as well as the other supporters to keep you all updated on what’s going on in here as well. I would also like any news-letter update sent out, could I receive one as well, it would be appreciated. Now a little of why I am on hunger strike is because they treat mental health and medical patients as if they’re not human. I have also witnessed officers laughing at inmates who have cut themselves or tell them they have thoughts of self-harm. I honestly want change. I feel for the people who are with mental illness and medical problems and it’s a struggle for them so that’s why I’m on strike so we can struggle together for change with *A/C and how they mistreat us as humans.

            So this is my first time asking for the free stamps so I am sending you my account statement. I have one from June and a recent one for August. I tried to get my other copies but they want us to pay for them.

Thank you for your support.                                              

Trust account statements enclosed          Respect from a friend,-          Kyle 

Christopher Bethel #538639;Green Bay Corr. Inst;P.O. Box 19033;

Green Bay, WT 54307 ; < Another individual on hunger strike/

FOOD Refusal/

Sept 7. Miguel Mercado #581858

I’m writing on behalf of inmate Miguel Mercado #581858, due to him not having no stamps. Inmate Mercado wanted me to let you know what’s going on with him. Currently Mercado is on a hunger strike because of retaliation from Green Bay Staff Member. Recently Mercado have been sent to segregation for an altercation with a staff member by the name of Sgt. Hilbert. Mercado was loitering in the South Cell hall and Sgt. Hilbert approached Mercado and asked him what he’s doing. Mercado said talkin to my guy and attempted to walk away. Sgt. Hilbert informed Mercado he will be receiving a ticket. Mercado expressed his feelings about a ticket and started to walk down the stairs, Sgt. Hilbert asked Mercado what do he have in his hands, Mercado said nothing and Sgt. Hilbert started to follow Mercado. Mercado said his hair was in his face so he moved it and Sgt. Hilbert yelled what you put in your mouth. Mercado said nothing. But Sgt. Hilbert didn’t believe him so Sgt. Hilbert grabbed Mercado by the neck and slammed Mercado on the stairs and grabbed Mercado’s throat and attempted to his finger down Mercado’s throat. Mercado pushed Sgt. Hilbert’s hands away and tried to get Sgt. Hilbert off of him but Sgt. Hilbert keep tryna put his finger in his mouth. When the Captain and Green Bay Staff responded they took Mercado to segregation. Mercado ended up receiving a 60 disciplinary separation for this incident. Mercado informed his mother about this incident and she said she was gone try to get a lawyer and file criminal charges against Sgt. Hilbert and a lawsuit against Green Bay Correctional Institution because Sgt. Hilbert used excessive force when his job doesn’t permit him to slam an inmate, choke him, and stick his fingers down his throat because he have speculations of the inmate tryna swallow something. And file a lawsuit against Green Bay Correctional institution because they didn’t suspend or investigate Sgt. Hilbert for what he done (breaking the rules) when an officer have speculation of someone swallowing something, they are sent to the hole under investigation and place in a dry cell where Green Bay Staff can monitor the inmate bowel movements and etc. But Green Staff didn’t do that, they physical assaulted Mercado. Which shows they didn’t follow the Department of Correction of Green Bay Correctional Institution Rules. After Mercado segregation time was up they put Mercado back in the South Cell Hall where Sgt. Hilbert work, even though Mercado asked to be separated from him. Green Bay Staff heard numerous of people playing their radio loud on the South Cell Hall and did a walk around and tried to say it was Mercado, Mercado said it wasn’t him and the Staff Member said it was. So Mercado told him to get away from his cell. The Staff Member walkin away and telling people to stop yelling out their cell. Somebody yelled “Bitch you should get hot water thrown on you.” The Staff Member kept walking away and a few hours later. The Captain sent Mercado to the hole due to the comment about the hot water. But Mercado kept telling them it wasn’t him but they still sent him to the hole, which Mercado feel is they form retaliating because his pursuit to file a lawsuit against Green Bay Staff and Institution. So now Mercado is doing a hunger strike to get his cause and word out to hope someone can help him get his reason out to the world. So I told him I will write you so I’ll please appreciate it if you can spread the word about this to the news, lawyers, and etc. To help him out Mercado is on a budget and could use help if you or anyone would like to know more about this incident you can contact Mercado at the address below. Thank you or your time.

Sincerely,
Howard Brown & Miguel Mercado

Miguel Mercado #581858
Green Bay C.I.
P.O. Box 19033
Green Bay, WI 54304

To whom it may concern:

            I’m writing you this letter because of the recent actions Green Bay C.I. have been making towards the inmates involved in the hunger strike.

On July 14, 16, Leontae Porter #597623, Kyle Young #563594, Devon Armour #599504 (who are all participating in Green Bay C.I.s hunger strike), and a few other inmates were in their recreation cages for recreation when Capt. Shultz (Green Bay Correctional Institution Restrictive Housing Segregation Unit Captain) approached inmates Leontae Porter, Kyle Young, Devon Armour about their reasons for going on hunger strike. The inmates expressed their reason to Capt. Shultz., Capt. Shultz agreed we had some legitimate reasons for our hunger strike but expressed his disapproval when he approached the front of inmate Kyle Young and said “I think you’re the ring leader in this, you know you’re not doing anything but hurting yourselves, and y’all going have to deal with me every day. If you don’t want me messing with y’all, all y’all got to do is eat. If not I can make your hunger strike a lot harder.” After that statement inmates Leontae Porter, Kyle Young, Devon Armour and a few other inmates said “Well do what you got to do y’all don’t care about us and we don’t care about you.” Capt. Shultz walked away and went about his business.

On July 15, 16 at approximately 10:00 AM, a few of Green Bay C.I. officers approached inmates Kyle Young, Devon Armour and my (Howard Brown #568093) cells, one by one, asking “do we want to see HSU (health service unit)” we all said “no, we’re good, we’re competent enough to know what comes with a hunger strike and we have no health concerns.” The officers said “well the nurse wants to check your vitals and stuff.” Then we stated “we have a right to refuse HSU treatment” so the officers walked away and came back with the shift segregation sergeant saying “the nurse just wants to check your condition”. That’s when inmate Devon Armour said “I’m not going cause if I come out y’all gonna try to split us up”. So the Sgt checked the list to show him he wasn’t gonna be split up or moved out of his cell, so inmate Devon Armour came out and complied with all orders, afterwards he was put back in his original cell (233). When the Sgt. Was done securing him in his cell he approached inmate Kyle Young in cell (229) and asked if he was coming out, he said “no” so the Sgt. came to my cell and asked me am I coming out, I said “no, I’m refusing HSU treatment”. So about 10:35pm Capt. Shultz comes down the [zoo or 200?]wing to talk to Kyle Young cell and have a brief conversation with him about refusing his HSU treatment, basically saying that he doesn’t have the right to refuse HSU treatment because he’s an inmate and we have control over you (referring to him and the Department of Corrections) which aggravated myself (Howard Brown), and inmate Leontae Porter to point out, we get to yelling out “if yall wouldn’t be treatin us this way you wouldn’t even care about our well-being right now”. We were loud to the point Capt. Shultz couldn’t hear inmate Kyle Young, so Kyle Young told us to hold on so we kept quiet and Kyle Young expressed to Capt. Shultz why he wasn’t coming out (because he good, he didn’t need HSUtreatment). So after that conversation Capt. Shultz said “I’m going to ask you one more time, are you going to see HSU, Kyle Young said “no”, so Capt Shultz told Kyle Young “I’m about to move you” and walked away. While Shultz was walking away inmate Leontae Porter attempted to verbally express his dislikes to Capt. Shultz and said “this is retaliation”. After Capt. Shultz was off of the wing the four of us (Leontae Porter, Devon Armour, Kyle Young and myself Howard Brown) get to talk about how they retaliating against us for being on hunger strike and refusing to see the nurse when we don’t need HSU treatment. Somehow we got to the topic of not coming out if they try to split us up so around 11:00 am the same Sgt. and officers came back to Kyle Young’s cell (229) and said the nurse said “we’re right we can refuse our treatment but they have to witness us do it”. So  Kyle Young said “how come she can’t come to us, they do that when we refuse to see HSU after filing a DOC-3035 (health service request). The officers and Sgt. said “I don’t know”, so I yelled out the door “So all I got to do is show I refuse”. The Sgt. said “who is that”, I said “Howard Brown, 235” so he walked to my cell with the officers and said “yeah”. So I asked “if I come out y’all ain’t gonna move me?” The Sgt. said “no” so I complied and came out and got put in restraints. While walking down the 2oo wing one of my leg restraints came off so I stopped and told them. The Sgt. bent down and put the restraint back on, I took a few more steps but felt my blood circulation cutting off in my right ankle so I stopped and told the Sgt., he put me on my knees and readjusted the leg restraints, so I wasn’t hurting. When I got up and reached the end of the hallway, Capt. Shultz was down there with a spray can in his hand and some officers who were suited up. Capt. Shultz stopped me and asked “how come I’m on hunger strike”. I told him “because we’re being mistreated and something needs to be done about it.” Capt. Shultz basically got to giving me his input on it, but every time I tried to express my opinion he kept saying wait until I’m done so I waited. But I tried to interrupt when he quote unquote said “this is my unit, I do what I want, I can put you on control status or whatever I want, I care for my officers”. So I said “is that a threat” Capt. Shultz replied by saying “thank you for coming out” and walked away, and the Sgt. and officer who had my arms tried to walk me to HSUbut I said “hold on can I talk now to Capt. Shultz?” Capt. Shultz said “I said my speech, take him to HSU”. So I said “this is one reason I’m on hunger strike”. When HSU confirmed that, they got  to witness me say I refuse, they asked me to sign a new sheet stating I knew the risk of doing a hunger strike, but my hands were behind my back so the nurse said she’ll bring it down to me to sign. Afterwards I was brought to my cell (285)) and complied with all orders. After I was secure in my cell Capt. Shultz and the suit up team went to Leontae Porter’s cell (239) and said “put your arms out the trap”. Porter said “for what”, Capt. Shultz said “You’re going on control status for refusing to move”. Porter expressed to Capt. Shultz that he didn’t once ask him to go to HSU or to move to a different cell. Capt. Shultz said “I heard that you wasn’t  going to move so I already knew what to expect”. So Porter complied and came out of his cell and they placed him in the strap down chair but before he was fully strapped down he started to resist because Capt. Shultz was making little comments that he knew would aggravate Porter because he takes medication for ADHD and Bipolar Disorder, and he has a recent history of snapping out due to the comments made. Inmate Porter snapped out and got tazed and moved to a cell (204) on the opposite side of a wall (block us from each other). After they were done with inmate Porter they came to Kyle Young’s cell (229) and asked to see his hands, he’s being put on control and moved to cell (301), on a totally different wing from all of us). Inmate Kyle Young complied but once they got him out of his cell, the suit up team started to use excessive force and started to move fast to the point the suit up team was discombobulated, in the words of Kyle Young, which got him agitated and he started to react, so he threatened to spit on one of them and they cut off his clothes in the hallway of the 2oo wing and put a spit mask on him, afterwards he was placed in a strap down chair and pushed down the hall with a towel covering him. Anything after that I am blind to, because I can’t see him anymore or talk to him, which shows they’re retaliating because he didn’t stop his hunger strike.  After all this was over myself (Howard Brown) and Devon Armour were the only ones left in our original cell, which leaves us to believe if we didn’t come out would we been by each other or even treated like inmates Leontae Porter and Kyle Young? The tapes to these suit up and more tapes of inmate Kyle Young and LeontaeProter suit ups you should be able to receive from the Freedom of Information Act or Green Bay C.I.

Well, again this is what’s been going on since we’ve started our hunger strike, which we feel is their form of retaliation. Which we have a right to voice our First Amendment Right (freedom of speech). And this is our way to voice our speech so the world and Department of Corrections can listen or ignore us. Thank you for your time and if you can’t do anything with this information can you please bring our issues to the world and news attention.

Sincerely, Howard Brown #568093

If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for everything.

P.S.      Leontae Porter ate a few meals

            Devon Armour still hasn’t ate or drank anything

            Howard Brown still hasn’t ate anything but is drinking water

            Kyle Young still hasn’t ate or drank anything

 

Enclosed in this letter is a copy of the I.C.E I wrote up in the inmates Porter and Young names, because they are deprived of any writing material because of Capt. Shultz putting them on control status.  By the statements he made, they will be there for a while.

Sorry for the sloppy letter. I had to write a lot of I.C.Es on behalf of the inmates who are being mistreated in our hunger strike and I got charged with a Battery by Prisoner July 13 after I made my hunger strike public. It’scrasy how my crime was allegedly committed on April 23 but I get charged almost 90 days later.

So I’m working on that and our hunger strike so I just sent you my rough draft. I hope you forgive me for not making a neater copy. And another thing I want to bring to your attention is staff refusing inmates to observation treatment. Inmate Jarvis Gordon asked to go on observation numerous times and all they did was put him on control status and put him back in his normal cell when control status is used for a form of punishment while acting up in segregation. Inmate Leontae Porter also asked to go on observation 2 weeks straight and they never placed him on observation. He even showed staff he had a razor blade, they never took it from him or tried to even acknowledge his threats.  I had one encounter where on July 14, 16 I told staff that I’m going to swallow 24 pills of natraphine (15mg) each because they are playing with my phone calls because I’m on hunger strike so they’re trying to punish me. So officer Deifosso asked to see the pills so I showed him and he got Sgt. Verhang. Sgt. Verhang came to talk to me where I expressed my kindness being taken for weakness and he said he’ll look into the situation. Later on he said I’m right, I get a call, he’ll leave a sticky note to give me a call cause he won’t be working for a week, and went home on July 15, 16. I never received my phone call and not once did the officers ask to obtain my pills or for me to dispose of them, they let me keep possession of them which shows that they don’t have my best health at interest. These are the reasons why we’re striking. Green Bay staff did not have the dude who stopped Green Bay C.I staff best health at interest. I believe Green Bay C.I. Staff intentionally knew he was committing suicide and just let him do it. How can they not see him attempt suicide when the bubble where the officers are is right in front of his cell. They are killing us and getting away with it. Well, I’m going to let you go until next time. Have a good night and please spread the word.

p.s. I disposed of the pills I would never commit self-harm I just wanted to see how the outcome will be. 

To whom it may concern.                    July 17, 16

I’m writing because today I was told I was receiving a conduct report for expressing my First Amendment right (freedom of speech). Today the suit up team and Lt. Elzinger suited upon an inmate by the name of Rivera-Santiago who was in cell 237 because he threatened to commit self-harm to himself. He was gas(?) and brought out and roughed up a little bit before being placed on control status instead of observation which is a form of punishment, when he only acted out how he did because he wasn’t in his right mind and wanted to harm himself, which means he was basically punished for trying to harm himself instead of giving him the treatment he needs. But where I come in at is while this incident was going a few inmates and myself were yelling out the door expressing our opinion on the situation where “Frankie” was killed while on observation. When I expressed my opinion Lt. Elzinger said “Brown I’m writing you a ticket”; he didn’t once say he’s writing anyone else a ticket for their opinion. After he said that I told him “fuck a ticket I got a 240ds and now I don’t give a fuck”. So I continued to yell and express my opinion and facts on a bunch of topics and let the camera know what was going on with our hungers trike and Lt. Elzinger said “I will also be getting a ticket for disobeying orders”. They closed my window so I couldn’t see the altercation that was going on with Rivera-Santiago when he left his cell. The video to this incident you can get at the Freedom of Information Act. Again thank you for your time and if you can’t do anything with this information can you please spread the words and information I give you, I’ll appreciate it.
Sincerely, Howard Brown #568093 

Leontae Porter #597623 Drop out the hunger strike due to harassment from Green Bay C.I. staff and fear of further harassment.

Kyle Young #563594 Drop out the hunger strike due to harassment and fear of further harassment by Green Bay C.I. staff and also kidney failure problems. 

GBCI  strikers July
https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/tommy-carter-strikes-7-6-16.pdf

https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/tommy-carter-by-inmate-x-7-8-16.pdf

WCI
https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/joshua-scolman-7-9-16all.pdf

https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/jordan-cosby-7-11-16.pdf

Lead in Water

https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/t-franklin-7-12-16all.pdf